The following is one of the entries from my 100 Greatest Films from Germany, Scandinavia, Finland & Austria list, which I invite you to visit on this site if you haven’t already done so. — Dennis
The impersonal result of a contractual obligation, Tartuffe is nevertheless one of F. W. Murnau’s most beautiful films. Like Dreyer’s The Parson’s Widow, Master of the House and Ordet, it’s a comedy from someone from whom we do not expect a comedy.
Molière’s sixteenth-century play exists here as a film-within-the-film; the narrative frame encasing it is modern-day—the addition that scenarist Carl Mayer contributed. Molière’s play attacks various forms of hypocrisy, including religious hypocrisy. In the frame, a rich old man’s disinherited grandson, disguised, shows his grandfather a film of the play in order to expose the housekeeper, to whom the grandfather now plans to leave his fortune, as a greedy manipulator who only pretends to care about her employer. It is she who has convinced the old man that his grandson, an actor, is not to be trusted.
Both adversaries, ironically, are equally right. Obviously the boy is not to be trusted, as his entire ruse for exposing the housekeeper humorously demonstrates. He comes to us—the camera, that is—after his grandfather and the housekeeper throw him out of the house (on the occasion of a rare visit) to assure us he will not let matters stand as they do. He returns, his identity concealed, and more or less does to the housekeeper what she has done to him. Most feel that the boy is worthy of the inheritance. Hm. Nothing we see suggests he is any more honest, honorable or caring than the housekeeper, and, whatever her duplicity, it is the housekeeper, however imperfectly, who has been taking care of the old man day in, day out. Murnau’s film is a good deal darker and more savvy and complex than is generally acknowledged.
This also should be noted: Murnau’s shots, for all the comical punctuation, are exquisitely lovely.
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TARTUFFE (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1927)
The following is one of the entries from my 100 Greatest Films from Germany, Scandinavia, Finland & Austria list, which I invite you to visit on this site if you haven’t already done so. — Dennis
The impersonal result of a contractual obligation, Tartuffe is nevertheless one of F. W. Murnau’s most beautiful films. Like Dreyer’s The Parson’s Widow, Master of the House and Ordet, it’s a comedy from someone from whom we do not expect a comedy.
Molière’s sixteenth-century play exists here as a film-within-the-film; the narrative frame encasing it is modern-day—the addition that scenarist Carl Mayer contributed. Molière’s play attacks various forms of hypocrisy, including religious hypocrisy. In the frame, a rich old man’s disinherited grandson, disguised, shows his grandfather a film of the play in order to expose the housekeeper, to whom the grandfather now plans to leave his fortune, as a greedy manipulator who only pretends to care about her employer. It is she who has convinced the old man that his grandson, an actor, is not to be trusted.
Both adversaries, ironically, are equally right. Obviously the boy is not to be trusted, as his entire ruse for exposing the housekeeper humorously demonstrates. He comes to us—the camera, that is—after his grandfather and the housekeeper throw him out of the house (on the occasion of a rare visit) to assure us he will not let matters stand as they do. He returns, his identity concealed, and more or less does to the housekeeper what she has done to him. Most feel that the boy is worthy of the inheritance. Hm. Nothing we see suggests he is any more honest, honorable or caring than the housekeeper, and, whatever her duplicity, it is the housekeeper, however imperfectly, who has been taking care of the old man day in, day out. Murnau’s film is a good deal darker and more savvy and complex than is generally acknowledged.
This also should be noted: Murnau’s shots, for all the comical punctuation, are exquisitely lovely.
Tags: Murnau
This entry was posted on October 2, 2007 at 2:09 pm and is filed under Formal Capsule Film Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.